


Trust Fall

by catie_writes_things



Series: Trust Issues [2]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst, F/M, Identity Reveal, in which ladybug is flustered, one-sided identity reveal, secret identities are confusing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-21
Updated: 2018-05-21
Packaged: 2019-05-09 15:50:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14719068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catie_writes_things/pseuds/catie_writes_things
Summary: Still reeling from the revelation of Hawk Moth's true identity, Chat Noir decides to tell Ladybug everything.





	Trust Fall

“Ladybug, I really need your help. Please come quickly.”

 

Chat Noir’s final message had been short and desperate. Marinette had never heard him sound so serious, and that alone would have been enough for her to drop everything and meet him on the north tower of Notre Dame Cathedral like he’d requested. The earlier calls for help that she’d missed only made her more anxious. She hoped that she wasn’t coming to his aid too late.

 

It was late at night, and while the cathedral was still illuminated, the crowds of tourists were absent from the square below when Ladybug finally joined Chat Noir. She was surprised to find him seated on the stone balustrade at the edge of the roof, feet dangling in the air and shoulders slumped. He didn’t look ready for a fight.

 

“I’m sorry I didn’t get your messages earlier,” Ladybug apologized. “I came as soon as I could.”

 

Chat Noir half-heartedly turned his head in her direction. “That’s okay,” he said. “You’re here now.”

 

“So what’s going on?” Ladybug asked, leaning against the balustrade next to him and trying to catch his eye. “Has someone been akumatized?”

 

“No, there’s no akuma this time,” Chat Noir replied sadly, avoiding eye contact. “Hawk Moth is trying a new strategy.”

 

Ladybug tensed. “How did you find out?”

 

Chat Noir finally looked up at her, tentatively, green cat eyes peeking out from underneath the blond hair that fell in his face. “He told me,” he said softly.

 

“You spoke to him?” Ladybug asked incredulously. “In person? But why would he just tell you his new plan?”

 

“Because,” Chat Noir said, then swallowed and swung one leg over the balustrade so he was now straddling it, and facing her. “Because he thought he could convince me to help him.”

 

Ladybug laughed in relief. “Really? That’s his brilliant idea? What’s he going to try next, saying pretty please?” She shook her head. “You had me worried for a second there, Kitten.”

 

Chat Noir scowled. “This is serious, Ladybug.” She realized belatedly he hadn’t used a single nickname for her in this entire conversation.

 

“I’m sorry, you’re right,” she admitted. “Hawk Moth is no laughing matter. But obviously his new plan is a dud. You have no reason to help him.”

 

Chat Noir closed his eyes. “He knows who I am,” he said in a very small voice, with none of his usual boldness.

 

“Oh no,” Ladybug breathed, putting a hand to her mouth. “How did he find out?”

 

“I don’t exactly know,” Chat Noir replied, sounding once again as desperate as he had in his last message. He opened his eyes, and it was hard to tell under the mask in the dim light, but Ladybug thought he might have been crying. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. I asked you to come here, because I need to tell you everything.”

 

“No,” Ladybug said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “We agreed, Chat Noir. Neither of us can know anything about the other’s life.” Whatever Hawk Moth tried to do with the knowledge, they’d find some way to stop him, surely, without taking that risk...

 

“But Hawk Moth knows about me. That changes everything,” Chat Noir insisted. “And I need you to understand…I’m trusting you, Ladybug.” He swung his other leg over onto the roof and stood, pulling away from her touch, then took a deep breath. “Claws in.”

 

“No, wait-” Ladybug called, but it was too late. The transformation happened in an instant, green light and then Chat Noir was gone, and in his place stood…

 

“Adrien?” she asked weakly. She was used to her head spinning around him, but this was totally different. Adrien was Chat Noir, the friend she relied on, the partner she fought side-by-side with...and the boy who was hopelessly in love with her. Or at least, with Ladybug.

 

But she had more important things to worry about right now.

 

With the mask gone, the tears in Adrien’s eyes were now plain to see. “You were right, after all, Ladybug,” he said miserably. “My father is Hawk Moth. That’s why he told me. He thinks I’ll try to get your miraculous so I can use it with mine, to bring my mom back. Apparently, that’s what he’s wanted them for all along.”

 

“Adrien, I had no idea,” Ladybug said sympathetically. But her fingers twitched nervously towards her yo-yo. She didn’t want to think that Adrien would even consider going along with Hawk Moth’s plan, but she knew how much he wanted his father’s approval, and how much he missed his mother…

 

“You have nothing to worry about from me,” Adrien said, as if he could read her mind. He looked down at his right hand, where he wore the silver ring that Ladybug now realized looked just like Chat Noir’s. “I’d never try to take your miraculous from you,” he declared. “But if what my father said about their powers is true…” He slipped the ring off his finger, and held it out to her in the palm of his hand. “Could you do it?”

 

He looked so hopeful, she had to consciously remind herself of Master Fu’s warning. “I’m sorry Adrien,” she said, taking his hand and closing his fingers around the ring. “That power...it’s too dangerous...”

 

“So it is possible!” Adrien exclaimed, as if that were all he had heard. “Please, Ladybug,” he begged. A cool breeze tousled his hair, making him look more wild, almost more like Chat Noir. Ladybug let go of his hand and hugged herself against the chill. “It’s not just that I want her back,” Adrien was saying. “It’s my father, too. He’ll have no reason to akumatize anyone anymore.”

 

“How do you know that’s really all he’s after?” Ladybug questioned. “He could want that power for other reasons, too.”

 

“He promised me,” Adrien said simply.

 

Ladybug frowned. “And you believe him?”

 

“It’s worth a try, isn’t it?” Adrien insisted. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

 

Ladybug shook her head. “He didn’t tell you everything about the wish power, did he?” She tugged nervously at one of her pigtails. It was such a _Marinette_ gesture, she immediately kicked herself for doing it, but if Adrien noticed, he gave no indication. “Whatever you do with it, there has to be a balance,” she explained. “If you use it to save someone’s life, somebody else loses theirs.”

 

Adrien’s shoulders slumped, and his hand, still closed in a fist around his ring, fell back to his side. “You’re right, my father didn’t mention that,” he said dejectedly.

 

“Well, maybe he doesn’t know about that part?” Ladybug suggested with an awkward shrug. She couldn’t believe she was defending Hawk Moth, but Adrien looked so disappointed. It did seem cruel, if his father had kept that from him on purpose to try to trick him into using a power he didn’t fully understand. But then, it was Hawk Moth. Wasn’t he always using people like that?

 

“Yeah, maybe,” Adrien agreed half-heartedly, returning the ring to his finger. He turned away from her and wiped furtively at his eyes. “I just really wanted to believe it was that simple, you know? That my mom would come back and everything would be okay.”

 

Ladybug’s instinct was to reach for him again, but she hesitated. It was one thing when he was Chat Noir. Could she comfort him like that, as Ladybug, when he was Adrien Agreste? But when she saw his shoulders start to shake, she threw caution to the wind, grabbed him, and pulled him into a hug.

 

Adrien stiffened in surprise at first, but then leaned into her, wrapping his arms around her waist like he had when they danced at Chloe’s party. Well, when he danced with Marinette. This was so confusing, her knowing who he was when he didn’t know the truth about her.

 

“Listen, Adrien,” Ladybug said after a moment, “do you actually know what happened to your mom?” She felt him shake his head against her shoulder. “Then you don’t know that using the miraculous is the only way to get her back.” She patted his back awkwardly with one hand. “We’re superheroes, right? We have to be able to figure something out.”

 

He pulled away from her embrace and wiped at his eyes again with the heel of his hand. “Thanks, Ladybug,” he said softly. It took her a moment to notice in the near-darkness, but she realized that he was blushing. Of course he was blushing, he’d just cried all over the girl he had a crush on. Ladybug felt her own face flush as she realized that Adrien _had a crush on her_ and he’d just _cried all over her_. All over Ladybug? This was ridiculous.

 

“Um, since you told me who you are,” Ladybug began, fidgeting nervously with her hands. “Well, I mean, you’re Adrien, I know who you are, but you told me you’re Chat Noir, too...or I guess Chat Noir told me he’s you...anyway, the point is, I feel like I should…”

 

“No, Ladybug,” Adrien interrupted her rambling. It was a miracle that hadn’t been enough to give her identity away. There couldn’t possibly be another girl who could make as much of a fool of herself around Adrien as Marinette could. “You don’t owe me your secret just because I told you mine,” Adrien went on. “I don’t want you to tell me who you are because you feel like you have to. If you do decide to share that with me someday, it should be because it’s what you want.”

 

Ladybug frowned. “But you told me because you felt like you had to,” she pointed out. That didn’t seem fair to him, that she got a choice and he didn’t.

 

“Yeah, I did,” Adrien agreed, then chuckled and ran a hand through his hair in that flustered way that made her knees weak. “But you know what? It’s such a relief that you know now.” He looked her straight in the eye, with total openness and intensity. “I’ve never wanted to keep anything from you.”

 

Yep. This was really confusing.

 

“Uh huh,” Ladybug replied stupidly, staring into Adrien’s green eyes, before she got ahold of herself once more. There was still the little problem of Adrien’s dad being their greatest enemy. “We should go talk to Master Fu about this in the morning,” she said more sensibly. “The Hawk Moth situation, I mean.”

 

“Right,” Adrien agreed, looking up at the dark sky. “Look, I don’t really want to go home right now, but I don’t know how to explain to anyone…”

 

“You, uh, want me to talk to one of your friends for you?” Ladybug offered tentatively. People were more accepting of cryptic explanations from masked superheroes, for some reason. She figured Adrien would want to stay with Nino, or maybe Chloe, since they’d known each other so long. Both of them were big Ladybug fans, so it wouldn’t be hard.

 

“Could you?” Adrien asked, rubbing the back of his neck and avoiding her eyes again. “I don’t know if you know my friend Marinette…”

 

“Marinette?” Ladybug nearly shouted in surprise. “Oh, um, yes, I know her.”

 

Adrien shrugged, still looking at the roof of the tower beneath his feet. “She’s helped me out before, when I needed to lie low. Do you think she’d mind doing it again?”

 

“Well, sure,” Ladybug replied. “I mean, no, I don’t think she’d mind. We’d just have to, uh, ask her parents?” She cleared her throat. “Which I’d be happy to do for you.”

 

“Thanks,” Adrien said sincerely, looking up at her again. “You’ve helped me so much.”

 

“Of course,” Ladybug said. “We’re partners, right? We help each other.” Adrien just smiled at her, and there was a moment of silence, which was awkward at least on Ladybug’s part, before she cleared her throat again. “So, we should get going, before it gets any later.” She grasped her yo-yo in hand, preparing to swing down from the tower, then glanced back at Adrien. “It’d probably be better if you, um…” She mimed claws with her free hand. Not that she couldn’t get both of them where they needed to be, but he was perfectly capable of keeping up with her as Chat Noir.

 

“Oh, right,” Adrien said. He pulled his outer shirt away from his chest, and a dark shape that Ladybug took to be his kwami flew out of the inner pocket. She was surprised the kwami had kept quiet this whole time. “Plagg, claws out,” Adrien commanded, and in a moment Chat Noir was with her once more. “After you, my lady,” he said with an exaggerated bow, his signature cheeky grin just a little more subdued than usual.

 

Ladybug hurriedly let her yo-yo fly and swung away before he could notice how much her face flushed. She knew Chat Noir had excellent night vision. She didn’t look back, trusting him to follow her.

 


End file.
